Saturday, May 26, 2018

New Democratic Congress of Peoples of Russian Federation has Far-Reaching Goals

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 26 – Created to oppose
the proposed law making the study of non-Russian languages voluntary, the new
Democratic Congress of Peoples of the Russian Federation has a far broader
agenda, one that includes “broadening the space of freedom” and promoting
federalism, according to political analyst Ruslan Aysin, who participated in
its formation.

The failure of officials to take the
people seriously on key issues, the Tatar expert says, reflects the fact that “representatives
of the nomenklatura do not want and cannot hear the voice of reason, the voice
of society, the voice of civil society” and appear to have forgotten that “the state’s
functions are to satisfy the needs of the population” (business-gazeta.ru/article/383557).

The Democratic
Congress will remind and help them to behave as they should, Aysin
suggests.That is no small challenge. “The
elite which has given to itself a monopoly right to act int eh name of the state
requires the people to delegate ever more powers to it, but in exchange, it
does not want to fulfill that which it must fulfill.”

To that end, the analyst continues,
the new Democratic Congress includes “real people who have the authority and
respect in the localities, real people’s deputies in the ream meaning of this
term from Sakha, Chukotka, the Middle Volga, the North Caucasus, the center and
west of Russia.”

“The time of simulacra … has passed.
Russia carries the adjective ‘Federation,’ that is, unity. And unity is always
better than divisions.However, certain ignorant
people are inclined to call unifying processes ‘separatist,’ which has the
semantic meaning of ‘to divide.’” For such people, Aysin says, “war is peace,
freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.”

Those who say they are fighting separatism are
in fact promoting “internal separatism” by “segregating languages, dividing the
pupils of schools by nationality, and refusing to fulfill constitutional norms
and legal demands!”

In this situation, he says, “the
Congress is forced to take on itself responsibility for the fate of the peoples
which it represents for the fate of our common Motherland – as we do not have another
one. [And] the need to defend federative principles also stands on the agenda”
of the new organization.

“Russia is fated to be a federalist
country.” Efforts to over-centralize in the past led to the collapses of 1917
and 1991.”Everyone must recognize that “flexibility
and the taking account of the interests of all is a precondition of success. By
the Constitution, power belongs to the people; taking initiative into our own
hands is our direct obligation.”